by KT Strange
“That’s right,” I finally answered her, knowing I was staring at her like an idiot.
“Do you want anything to drink? You look like you’ve had a rough night,” she said as she walked over to the fridge. It was triple the size of the little fridge in our—in Phoenixcry’s tour van. My chest squeezed as I thought of the guys, crammed in the van. It’d had been so much like home in there with them that not even meeting Chelsea Sawyer could make the little tour van seem like the lesser of the two.
“Yeah, that’d be nice,” I said. Chelsea smiled at me, and I felt a flush of warmth in my body in response. She just seemed so nice, it was impossible to not relax in her presence. She poured me a soda and brought it to me. I sat on one of the pristine white couches, and took a sip.
“Aaron’s told me a bit about you,” she said as she folded her impossibly long legs up under her and relaxed back into her knit blanket. “So you’re my new stray, hmmm?”
“I don’t know what he meant by that, but you don’t need to take care of me. I’m good,” I insisted. I took another sip of soda. It soothed my throat, but did nothing to fix the ragged hole in my chest where Cash and the guys’ betrayal had ripped out my heart. I was still trying to figure out if Finn had ever really loved me, or if he’d just loved the idea of what I could do for the pack. I closed my eyes and sighed.
“You look tired, sweetie,” Chelsea said, and I realized I was nearly dropping my soda onto my lap. She reached over and took the glass from my numb fingers.
“I’m just really...” I was tired. It was an overwhelming feeling swamping me, pulling me down.
“Let me take you to your bunk,” she said, and my hand was in hers and she was leading me down the long aisle. Bunks lined the walls on either side of us, and the air felt muffled, quiet. “Here,” she said, as she pulled back a pleated curtain for a lower bunk. It was just like home, back at the dorm with Max. I crawled in and sighed.
Chelsea laughed again, soft and silvery like earlier.
“We’ll wake you up in the morning, but if you need anything, the bathroom is just to your left, and you can help yourself to anything in the fridge, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, my eyelids feeling heavy. Grief had weighed me down, but even that was shifting away. Chelsea let the curtain drop and I heard her walk away. I squirmed to get out of my jeans, and shoes, tucking them at the end of the bunk, and sighed, crawling under the blankets. They were barely up to my chin, when the soft sound of Chelsea singing, drifted down the narrow hall to me. I couldn’t quite make out the words, but they dragged me right down into sleep. I should have been worried about the guys, about my future, about hunters, about everything… but all my emotions blurred together and faded away.
Finally, I was at peace.
Thirty-Two
The movement of the bus underneath me rocked me slowly from sleep. I woke up in the dark, thinking for a moment that I was with Finn. My eyes opened into the faint light of my bunk, Finn’s warmth missing from beside me. The scent was sterile, like cleaned carpets, no hint of mint, or the combined scents of the other wolves.
After a second of staring at the ceiling, it finally hit me that the bus was moving. I shoved my legs in my jeans and shot out of my bunk, stumbling into the living area. Aaron looked up from where he sat, laptop open on the couch beside him. It was light outside, just after dawn.
“The guys,” I blurted out. “They—where?” They had no idea where I was. My chest tightened, a giant rubber band wrapping around it and stopping me from getting a full lungful of air.
“We agreed it was best if you rode with us to the next venue,” Aaron said, his voice calm. He got up and poured a glass of water, and held it out for me. “I spoke with Eli before they left.”
“They left?” I asked, my voice cracking. I took the water and gulped down a mouthful of it.
“They loaded out and hauled ass shortly after you went to sleep.” He shrugged. “They said they had something to do before they got to the next venue. We’ll see them there though, in a few hours. Why don’t you go back to sleep for a bit?”
I looked out the window and nodded. A swirl of guilt and sadness took up home in my belly, threatening to suck my heart down into a pit of bottomless despair. Sleep sounded like a great idea. Sleep sounded like the best idea.
Aaron gave me an understanding, sad smile.
“You’re really having a tough time, huh?” He took the glass from me, setting it on the counter, and wrapped me up in a hug that I hadn’t been expecting. He squeezed me gently then chucked me under the chin. “Go to sleep, kid. You look wrecked.”
“Thanks,” I said, wrinkling my nose at him. I took one more sip of water before tipping the glass out into the sink.
Aaron’s eyes were on me until I disappeared behind the privacy curtain that separated the sleeping quarters from the rest of the bus. The darkness enveloped me as I curled back into my bunk. Staring up at the ceiling of my little cubby, I took long, slow breaths to calm my body. Sleep was a long time coming, but it snuck up on me, stealing me away to a place where bad feelings and confusing thoughts didn’t exist.
The soft crackle of something frying made me sit up and rub my temples. It felt like my head was trying to crack open from the inside. I grabbed my pants and squirmed into them. The grimy feeling of wearing the same things for two days clung to me as I pushed aside my bunk’s pleated curtain and blinked into the light that flooded the aisle of the bus’s sleeping section.
Low laughter, talk, the strum of an acoustic guitar, and the smell of bacon dragged me, hesitant, from the cocoon of the sleeping quarters. Chelsea looked up, her long blond hair tied in two thin braids down her back, from where she sat between Aaron’s legs, her back against his belly and chest. They looked so comfortable that my heart ached. The rest of the band were there too. Glory Rev was a four piece band, plus Ginny, and their tour manager and gear tech, Horse. I had no idea why he was called Horse, but it seemed to suit him—he had more teeth than any human rightfully should but, despite his sort of homely appearance, he was a solid guy and had been friendly with me whenever we’d crossed paths.
“Sleep well, sweetie?” Chelsea asked as she got to her feet. She walked easily despite the rock of the bus as we drove along the highway. When I made a face, she chuckled and poured me a glass of water. “Drink all of this, then Dean will make you some bacon.”
Dean stood by the frying pan, bravely shirtless, and saluted me with his spatula. He was on drums, and he had the biceps and forearms to prove it. His dark skin rippled as he flipped a pancake and winked at me. I gave him a brief smile back and drank my water slowly. It was like I was underwater, I felt so weighed down and dragged out.
Then the bus turned a sharp corner on the highway and I took a deep breath. I looked at Aaron. He was playing with Chelsea’s braid ends, tickling them up her neck. I had to glance away, because it made me miss Finn too much and his warm, comforting cuddles in the back of the van.
Ginny was sprawled on one of two bench seats that made up the dining table, playing an enthusiastic game of snap with the other two guys, Seth and Evan. Horse was on his phone, muttering quietly into it. Ginny smiled up at me and patted the seat beside her.
“Wanna play?” she asked. I shook my head, leaning my hip against the counter for balance.
“I’m okay. Thanks though.” My mind was going a million miles an hour. I needed to do something, get out of the bus, move, or something. We might have been traveling down the highway at 70 miles per hour, but I felt like I was standing still. “I need to make a call,” I said to no one in particular, and ducked into the sleeping quarters.
Daria picked up right away. I took a slow, shallow breath.
“Darcy? Two calls in a few days, I’m getting spoiled,” she joked, although I could tell she was worried.
“I-I need that money,” I whispered. She went quiet for a second, and I could hear the shuffle of her sitting up.
“Why?” she asked after a moment.
“Not that it changes things, I’ll get you the money you need, but why?”
“I’m coming home.” The words nailed my future into a coffin, and I closed my eyes as my world went sideways.
Maybe I hadn’t been hit by the bus. Maybe I was the bus, knocking my own self over, flattening my future and wrecking everything. Daria was quiet, very quiet.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked, her voice wavering.
“No.”
“Then you need to think about that. Really carefully.”
“I can’t.” I needed to not think. Thinking was a privilege for the people who weren’t walking around with half their heart dragging on the ground behind them.
“Tell me where, and I’ll get it to you. For a flight, I’m guessing?” There was a scratching noise.
“We’re in Albuquerque next,” I said.
“Land of enchantment,” Daria snickered. “Let me just book you a flight. So like, tomorrow?”
“Today, please. I’ll be there in six hours, tops.” It was really happening.
“Mmkay. You need a ride from the airport?”
I bit my lip.
“Okay. Yeah, sure.”
“Alright I’ll have it booked and send you the info in a minute here. Darcy, Are you sure? Like absolutely sure? Cause once you’re back here, I don’t know if—well, your parents were pretty pissed when you ran off the first time.”
My throat tightened.
“Maybe book it round-trip. I just have questions, I need to see you, I just need a break. From everything. It’s not like they ever tried to look for me anyway, so I don’t—I just, I need some time. Everything’s—it’s all—” My throat cut off my words, and I couldn’t speak.
Daria fell quiet.
“Yeah. Okay. Well, let me text you the flight information, and I guess I’ll see you soon.”
By some small miracle, Phoenixcry’s van wasn’t at the venue when we got there. It was probably for the best anyway. Aaron had grabbed my bags out of their van before we’d left the last venue the night before, so it was no big deal to pull my duffel over my shoulder, go around a corner of the venue where no one could see me and hail a cab.
I shot a text message to Max. She at least deserved to know what was going on.
I’m doing the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
It was a few minutes before I received one back.
Does it involve jello shots? Otherwise it’s not that stupid.
It’s worse than that. I’m going home. Like… home-home. I replied and sat back, closing my eyes as the cab took me to the airport. My phone buzzed and I didn’t even want to look at it.
A numb, icy feeling spread through my whole body as I arrived at the airport. I went through the motions of checking in; I had to throw out a few things in my bag as I went through security because my hand cream was too big, apparently. I boarded the plane, the smell of thin air clinging to every surface, and finally looked at my phone.
Max had sent three more texts in the time I’d gotten to the airport and on my plane.
DARCY WHAT THE FUCK.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
OKAY BUT SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK. THAT GIRL FROM YOUR INTERNSHIP, WILLA, JUST CALLED ME. YOU BAILED?!
I’d forgotten I’d listed Max as my emergency contact.
CALL ME RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. Her last text message, sent twenty minutes ago, left me with a sour taste in the back of my throat. I didn’t have to explain anything to her. Why couldn’t she be like Daria, who hadn’t asked any big questions, who had just done me a solid?
I held my breath as the plane picked up speed, and took flight, sending my stomach into my spine and my heart into my throat. It was done. I was gone. This was the bed I’d made, and I was going to lay in it. There was just one more thing I needed to do…
Keep reading for an excerpt from Book 2 in The Rogue Witch Series
PHOENIXFALL
Available on Amazon now!
Phoenixfall - Chapter 1
ACE
I felt listless. That was probably the best word for it. The urge to shift, like always, itched right below my skin, but I ignored it. I couldn’t have shifted if I wanted to. None of us could. Eli had the driver’s side window rolled down, and the breeze ruffled my hair as we drove through the hot desert from New Mexico down to Texas.
Every mile passed us, and I sank deeper into a pit of anger and sadness. Darcy was gone-gone. We were on our own, and the van felt so empty without her presence. Her scent still clung to our things, taunting us, making it feel like I’d turn around and she’d be sitting right there in the back, curled against Finn.
But the only thing that would be there when I turned would be Finn; his face bruised, a scowl set on his lips. He and Eli hadn’t been getting along all that great since Eli decided for all of us that we’d take off after the Albuquerque gig and not wait for Darcy to show up again. His reasoning was that we still weren’t sure if hunters were on our collective tails, and she’d get in touch with the label if she needed to be picked up.
Finn had disagreed. Violently. I backed Finn up, but Eli had been in a mood, and even I knew not to piss off our alpha wolf when he was stalking around like an asshole. Finn was his twin though, and apparently brave or stupid enough to challenge his brother.
It’d earned Finn a nearly broken arm and a black-eye. The black-eye would heal, the arm too, in a matter of hours and a day or two respectively. His heart, and mine? That would end up taking a little longer.
Yeah, Darcy was gone, yeah probably back to her school, because her scent had died a few blocks away from the venue telling me she’d taken transport to wherever she’d taken off to. She’d chosen mundane life over messing around with werewolves, and I had to respect that, I guess. That didn’t make it any easier to lose her.
In the short weeks she was in our lives, she’d become the center of our pack. I’d expected her to become our mate, the heart and soul of our world, and she’d just vanished.
“Hey,” Charlie said, nudging me. I looked up. He held his phone so I could see the screen. On it a small, fuzzy kitten rolled around with a ball of yarn. My brow furrowed.
“What?” I asked. Charlie wrinkled his nose.
“I though it would make you smile. You love cat videos.”
“Meh,” I said. I looked out the window and closed my eyes, inhaling the hot air and wishing it would give me a hint of Darcy, anything, any small hint of her at all. But there was nothing out there, and what was left of her essence in the van was quickly fading.
Maybe that’s why Eli kept opening up the window, to clear out any evidence that Darcy had ever been with us.
Too bad he couldn’t erase the marks she’d laid on us that were invisible. Finn wore them, in his shadowed eyes. He’d actually had her. He’d loved her, pinned her to the bed in the back of the van and made her cry his name out. My own body ached every time he’d done it, but I wasn’t jealous.
Much.
“So are we getting… a new tour manager?” I asked Charlie after a half hour passed, time liquid and stretching out. Charlie shook his head.
“Willa seems to think that Darcy’ll surface and, once she pays her penance, Willa will let her come back into the fold.”
Up front, Eli snorted.
“Really? That’s what Willa thinks?” he asked, glaring at us in the rear-view. I heard the low rumble of Finn’s growl from the back, but ignored it for now. He’d been doing that, off and on, since we’d bailed out of Albuquerque without Darcy, without our heart. It was unsettling for such an easy-going, normally cheerful guy to be a storm-cloud of misery all the time.
Charlie rolled his eyes, the sound nearly audible.
“Sure Willa doesn’t know what Darcy is, but just because our girl’s a witch doesn’t mean she isn’t also human. She’ll come back, and I’m just fucking glad Willa’s willing to forgive her,” Charlie said, sounding confident, almost relaxed about it. My skin itched more, and I nearly echoed Finn�
��s unhappy rumble.
“For all we know, Miss Llewellyn decided to go back to her family and let them know that a group of wolves was touring the country,” Eli said, his shoulders tense. Finn snarled, wordless and enraged. Movement in the front passenger seat made my eyes dart from Eli to where Cash had been sleeping, or so I’d thought he’d been sleeping.
Cash lifted his head, looked Eli square in the face, and laughed.
“You honestly think that?” he demanded. “You think Darcy went running back to her family to tell them that she’d been getting horizontal with werewolves? That she reported us, to them, so they could come and wipe us off the planet?”
Eli’s shoulders hunched even further.
“Well-“
“Oh shut the fuck up,” Cash sat forward, stretching out, although his irritation radiated out from him, in every inch of his body despite his relaxed pose. “You don’t believe that for a second. I think you’re fucking butt-hurt that she left us, and you’re trying to come up with reasons why she did to make her into the kind of monster she isn’t.”
Behind us, Finn went quiet for a moment, the lack of his growling almost as unsettling as the sound of it had been before.
“Darcy would never betray us like that. She hated her family. Hated them. She knew that we, us, all of us, we were where she belonged. I think she got scared cause someone kept pressuring her about creating a heartstone,” Finn snapped the last few words and Cash turned, glowering.
Charlie held up a hand and whistled so sharply that my ears crackled. I covered them with my hands, wincing.
“As much as this game of pass the blame is exciting, new, and fun,” he drawled, “it’s not getting us to our next venue any faster, it’s not bringing her back to us, and it’s giving me a fucking headache. Also, Willa’s calling me, so shut the fuck up, all right?”
